being miguel would be electorally advantageous, but, mitt, that idea is no bueno. that does it for "the cycle." martin, it's all yours. >> thanks so much, toure. good afternoon. it's monday, september 25th, and mitt romney has a days of the mondays. time is short, and so are the details. >> what are we talking about? the mortgage deduction, the charitable deduction? >> the devil's in the details. the angel is in the policy. >> he seems to only have one note, tax cuts for the wealthy. >> some people, governor, have an uneasy feeling that you're not constant, that you say whatever you have to say in a particular moment. >> well, they can look at my record. >> he did. that's why he asked the question. >> the devil is in the details. the angel is in theolicy. >> how do you turn this thing around? >> it doesn't need a turnaround. >> oh, dear lord. >> we're going to win.

>> i want to see fire in the belly. ♪ america, america >> i think that we had a good week last week. >> i understand that there's a video that's been on the internet. i don't know how it is that shelden adelson got the front row. i'm not exactly sure what precisely i said, but i stand by what i said, whatever it was. ♪ >> we begin with a hectic day on the campaign trail with the romney/ryan duo launching an aggressive play for battleground states where the republican ticket is slowly and surely losing support. just an hour ago the campaign kicked off its three-day bus tour in ohio with an absentee mr. romney handing over the driving to his deputy, paul ryan. the tour comes as the latest poll in the must-win buckeye state shows romney at a five-point deficit to the

president and as the president leads by three points in politico's new national poll with a seven-point edge in the crucial question of likability. wile i'm sure they were disappointed to be deprived of mitt's marvelous magnetism and charisma, he was out west today courting swing state coloradoans and granting the rare privilege of a nonfox news interview with nbc's peter alexander who asked him about that failure to connect. >> how have you failed to make that connection? >> i'm very pleased with the fact that we have a campaign that is taking our message to the people across america, and, look, we're going to win. there's no question in my mind. we're going to win. >> yes, he's good enough, he's smart enough, and people like him, no matter what the polls say. indeed. with nine days to the first debate, romney must be knee-deep in deaf-affirmation getting ready for questions like this one. >> presidencies are remembered

for big ideas, emancipation, social security, man on the moon. what's your big idea? >> freedom. >> freedom, hope of the earth, all that. no really though, give him a tough one now, mr. pelly. how about taxes? >> you're asking the american people to hire you as president of the united states. they'd like to hear some specifics. >> well, i can tell them specifically what my policy looks like. i will not raise tacks on middle income folks. i will not lower the share of tacks paid by high-income individuals, and i will make sure that we bring down rates, we limit deductions and exemptions. >> what are we talking about, the mortgage deduction, the charitable deduction? >> the devil is in the details. the angel is in the policy which is creating more jobs. >> right. freedom, check. angels, check. throw in the towel, mr. president. this guy is going to obviously win. let's get right to our panel. in los angeles msnbc contributor

matt miller. in minneapolis anna marie cox, correspondent for "the guardian" and in washington msnbc political analyst karen finney. anna, if i might begin with you, in listening to mitt romney's responses this weekend and looking at the diagnosticcle and statistical manual of mental illness he appears to be suffering two forms of delusion, grandiose delusion where the individual has an inflated view of himself and also perscutory disorder. >> he needs a therapist of some kind, that's for sure. i think he might need to integrate his personalities as well. he's definitely shown a split personality between what he says in one place and what he says in another. that's a diagnostic term, to integrate thing. they have disparate data points about who they should be appealing to and what they

should be doing and they tend to just think of those things as discrete things. >> anna marie, you just heard mr. romney say he had a great week last week and he's going to win. why do you laugh? >> well -- i'm sorry. like, i keep thinking about what the romney campaign staffers must be doing at this point besides updating their resumes. it's a little early in the cycle to be doing that but with tim pawlenty already giving up his job on the romney campaign to go do something else, we're sort of seeing this implosion happening in slow motion. this campaign has been a joy to watch but only because i don't think -- i don't really have a lot invested in him winning or not. i think the campaign is very instructive for people who might run next time. >> matt, romney has seized on the president's comments on "60 minutes" talking about bumps in the road in middle east policy. take a listen to what he said today in colorado. >> bumps in the road. we had an ambassador

assassinated. these are not bumps in the road. these are human lives. these are developments we do not want to see. >> matt, white house spokesman jay carney today called it desperate and offensive to suggest the president was referring to ambassador stevens' death as a bump in the road. we watched the entirety of that ceremony. we broadcast it from this show. that was deeply disrespectful, was it not? >> i think desperate and offensive is a pretty good characterization. look, you know what they're trying to do. in some ways it's a very depressing reflection of where they are, you know, from the republican point of view in the campaign. they're going to try in every news cycle to seize on whatever they can, whatever sound bite and kind of twist it somehow to fit their message. i mean, if obama woke up one day and said, you know, it was a very hot summer in washington, you know, romney would say that's exactly the kind of socialistic desire to remake the

environment that americans have rejected, and it's kind of pathetic. it's also predictable. i don't think it will work. >> but, karen, i have to say to you, i was profoundly moved, people on this broadcast in the control room were actually weeping when they were watching the president and secretary of state for the transfer of those bodies. and mitt romney takes that phrase that the president used and throws it back at him. >> but also how dare mitt romney, the guy who -- i mean, he's lost all credibility on his criticism of president obama's foreign policy, particularly with that callous statement that he put out, this from the guy who was so stupid he put out a statement before he actually knew what the facts on the ground were? that's not somebody who has any standing to be critical, and you're right, it was an incredible moving ceremony. it was -- you can see how painful that was both for the president and for the secretary of state, and not to mention i think it was very clear that the president was speaking about our ongoing relationship in the

muslim world and the arab world and in the middle east and sort of with the aftermath of the arab spring, and if anything, you know, mitt romney has yet to have much of an answer to what we should do about that other than let's go invade iran and start up another war. >> yes, indeed. anna marie, while romney is accusing the president of being callous on foreign policy, he, himself, is remarkably cold on the question of health care. when asked about his plan for the uninsured, take a listen to this, anna marie. >> we do provide care for people who don't have insurance, people -- if someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. we pick them up in an ambulance and take them to the hospital and give them care and different states have different ways of providing for that care. >> that's the most expensive way to do it. in the morning room. >> again, different states have different ways of doing that. >> anna marie, didn't romney himself blame emergency room costs for the one reason for why

he wanted to introduce the individual mandate in massachusetts? >> that is the primary reason one has an individual mandate and universal care is to prevent people from using the emergency room as their primary care center. costs in the energy room are three, four, five times as much as they would be for a walk-in. people don't often know that. people delay getting care until they have to go to the emergency room. saying that the emergency room is the safety net for people who don't have insurance is saying like the ground is a safety net for people who might fall from a high building. you know, that is the very bottom that you're going to hit no matter what. and you're most likely going to die. really it's amazing. >> go ahead, karen. >> for a man who up to this point has attacked president obama on the specifics of obama care, the specific he now is willing to give us is this idea that if you don't have insurance, you could just go to the emergency room? number one, that assumes you live in a neighborhood where you can get an ambulance to you in

time to get to the emergency room if you're having a heart attack, by the way. number two, it is, as anna marie just said, it's exactly the opposite thing he said even in 2007 at one of the gop primary debates where he said that the best thing we need to do is make sure that everybody has access to a doctor. so, i mean, it also shows you i think this response -- it really is very sad and somewhat depressing to see how contorted this man has become to try to fit himself into something that he thinks the gop base will accept, which they're not accepting when he is literally trying to tell the american people that an acceptable solution to the 50 million uninsured is just go to the emergency room. >> qul done, mitt romney. matt, it seems that romney has no plan for the uninsured, he's dismissed half the nations a irrelevant, and yet rnc chairman reince priebus says they've got specific policy details coming out of their eyeballs, but wouldn't it help if these details were actually coming out of their mouths?

>> sure. i mean, and the health care example, it's back to where you started, martin. it's this notion of kind of psychology and the split personality. romney is the only governor to enact a universal health care plan in the united states. when he did this in massachusetts. the idea, as karen was saying, that they have adopted -- he has adopted this grim, cold, right wing conservative line that the emergency room is fine. that is spoken like a very well-well well-insured person. >> at least he's consistent, because he said he didn't care about the poor. >> what you can't square that with what he did when he was governor. >> what cares about flip-flopping between friends. >> it makes people more dependent on the government. if you're saying to people we want you to go to the emergency room --

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to secure your family's future today. he still doesn't have a coherent answer about how he'd pay for his proposed tax cuts nor what he effectively pays on his own taxes. in fact, the problem is in both areas as witnessed in his friday tax return dump and in his "60 minutes" interview sunday. it's the same. the numbers he reports suffer terribly under the slightest scrutiny. here with us in new york is william cohen, an author and a columnist for the bloomberg view and in washington democratic strategist julian epstein. good afternoon to both of you. bill, romney says or promised that he'd never paid less than 13% in tax.

but you know he had to do quite a lot of engineering of his returns for the 2011 period to make sure he scored that. >> martin, how much fun would it have been to have been in the room when he was trying to figure out which way to go on this? whether to say -- because he already said to the american people if i pay $1 more of tax than i should, i'm not worthy of being president. put that in one camp. in the other camp he said he wouldn't pay less than 13% effective rate in taxes. what did he do? he decided at the last minute to not take a deduction that he was entitled to for $2.5 million or whatever it was so he could pay an effective higher tax rate of 14%. i cannot imagine how much fun it must have been to be in one of his advisers trying to help him decide which one was the lesser of those two evils. >> and how much to give the government back. >> maybe more people should do that. no one is going to complain about that. it shows he paid more tacks txen

he should have and maybe he shouldn't be president. >> that's what he said. he made an effective rate if he had not given back the additional amount of about 9%. >> that sounds slightly low, but i haven't done the actual calculation. >> i think it's about 9%. julian, this is what romney told "60 minutes" about whether the rate he pays on investment income is fair. take a listen to this. >> it's because capital has already been taxed once at the corporate level as high as 35%. >> so you think it is fair? >> yeah, i think it's the right way to encourage economic growth, to get people to invest, to start businesses, to put people to work. >> just forgetting for a moment, julian, whether 15% on capital gains is fair or not, how many voters will think it's fair the people who pay that much on part of their income should also get a 20% tax cut on the rest of it if mr. romney becomes president? >> -- he thought it was fair

that he was -- >> okay. hang on a second, julian. we've just got a bit of a fault with your microphone. i am going to put that question to bill and we'll come back to you while we fix it. how many people do you think, bill, will think that it's reasonable for a guy who already only pays 13% on his investment income to then promise the rest of the electorate he's going to take a whopping 20% off the rest of his earnings? >> i don't understand the math here, martin. i don't see how he's going to get us out of the fiscal problems we have and continue to cut taxes for the rich, and if i heard what he said correctly on "60 minutes" last night he actually said for the first time, yes, he's going to lower rates by 20 percentage points for people or 20% for people, but he's also going to close all sort of tax loopholes like the mortgage deduction of interest, although he wouldn't specify what those would be, and effectively people are going to pay the same, if not more -- >> no difference. >> -- than they already paid. for the first time last night we understand that he's, in fact,

not going to cut people's taxes. >> so the reality is that this claim to be reducing tax at the direct in terms of your salary is actually a falsification because he's going to raise your tax if he closes loopholes. you may end up paying more, not less. why does he keep selling this voodoo economics to the nation? >> this is the first time again last night that we actually heard what he's really made of, and, you know, i never understood it when he said he was going to cut people's taxes 20% anyway because it wouldn't get us out of our fiscal cliff problem that we're in. we'd go right over the cliff as lawrence would say. and so my concern is now he's saying i'm not even going to low iryour taxes, i'm going to effectively raise your taxes because i'm going to cut out all sorts of deductions that many people have gotten quite used to. >> going back for a moment to his tax returns, do you think, because we all make this extrapolation, that he earned or he has a wealth of $250 million, but you don't quite agree with that, do you? >> no, and, martin, i don't.

the more i think about it, the more i believe that he has to be worth more than $250 million. >> why? >> two reasons. first of all, he came into private equity at the same time that some of the pioneers of private equity got going. people like steve schwartzman, people worth billions of dollars. why when mitt romney was funder of his firm, like steve schwartzman, also not be worth more than 25 $250 million. when you back into the fact of the nest egg he must have had -- >> for the period of 2011. >> even if he got a 3% yield on his portfolio, that would make his nest egg that was earning that money $450 million. so to me for him to say he only is net worth is 250 is completely disingenuous.

how can the rest of his net worth be only $1 r50 milli$150 . he should be like where his peer group is. >> you think he's worth half a billion dollars or more. >> i think he's hiding something and i don't have any proof of that, but my gut tells me he's hiding something. >> allyjulian, mitt romney obviy was hoping he would get rid of the issue of the 40% dismissal of the nation by dumping the tax returns, but it seems to me that from what bill has said, the tax returns themselves only raise further questions. >> well, i think that's right, and he's turned the standard of political transparency that his father set into a game of the "the price is right." not only was this a defining moment last week when he insulted 47% of the electorate, we then find out on friday that he's paying lower taxes than most of the electorate, and as you point out, it just raises more questions now. how is it that he was able to manipulate the tax code by dropping off the charitable

contribution deduction to get to a 14% tax rate when his effective rate was closer to 9%? how was it he was able to claim in 2008 and 2009 tax credits so that his income, his foreign income, was totally shielded from any tax liability whatsoever? how is it as we learn today that he is criticizing the administration in both china and iran when, in fact, in 2009 he was making heavy investments into a chinese company that was deeply involved with iran? so not only does the narrative continue, it gets worse. he's been playing defense on this issue since july 6th when the job numbers came out and the obama administration very skillfully shifted the issue to this tax question. he's been playing defense on this. this has been a weight around his neck that the campaign has not been able to get off of it largely because this is a campaign that doesn't want to be transparent. not about the personal questions that affect mitt romney and certainly not about the policies and that's why as daft axelrod said, this is the most secretive

candidate we have seen since richard nixon. >> julian epstein, thank you for bearing with us with our microphone wours and bill cohen. next, the first annual mitties. you don't want to miss this. >> if someone has a heart attack, they don't sit in their apartment and die. we pick them up in an ambulance and take them to the hospital and give them care, and different states have different ways of providing for that care. >> that's the most expensive way to do it. >> well -- >> in the emergency room. >> again, different states have different ways of doing that. >> i think the boy is hurt. >> oh, for crying out loud! just give him a nickel and let's get going. >> i think we should call an ambulance, sir. time for the your business entrepreneur of the week. andrew rosenwalk is the fourth generation owner of rosenwach

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emmys, we welcome you to the first annual mitties where the bar, unfortunately, is not open, but it's also set pretty low. a grand old party packed with a who's who of forgettable performances. let's get straight to the awards, shall we? for his tongue in cheek turn this weekend in the sci-fi stunner specifics coming out of our eyeballs, the acting award for comedy goes to none other than rnc chair and face of the republican party reince priebus! [ applause ] yes, magnificent. next up for her role in chastising the republican press and standing by her man at all costs, best actress in a mini series, the stop it and original good wife, mrs. ann romney. [ applause ] and for all his cookie calculations, whether it's being one hour off on his marathon tale or $1 billion off in a budget projection, yes, best supporting actor in a comedy goes to mr. paul ryan. [ applause ]

and for his willingness to pay any price, a reported $70 million and counting for this presidential election alone, sorry, mr. trump, this year the award for best host of a reality competition program goes to someone far richer than you, the man with the original poker face, it is sheldon adelson. [ applause ] but the towur de force, a performance dripping with contempt for the masses, a role that may change the course of american history, best actor in a serial drama, who else but he who would be king? mitt romney! [ applause ] please stay with us. the after party comes next. here's what happened...

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a lousy week on the presidential trail? it's all but a memory for the romney campaign. here are today's "top lines," how mitt got his groove back. >> their campaign is getting crazier than the last season of "lost." no one knows where it's going, they're introducing weird new story lines. >> how do you turn this thing around? >> it doesn't need to turn around. >> i don't believe we can get very far with leaders who write off half the nation as a birch of victims. >> why are you saying anything during this romney tailspin? on monday a secret tape is released. >> that's not the campaign, that was me. >> on wednesday he does a town hall for hispanic in brown face. >> no pay a lot of attention to the day-to-day polls. >> are we more elitist? >> stop it. this is hard. you want to try it, get in the ring. >> when you go after my man, i get ak gri. >> that's why i choose the one brand of tampons created by the people that know my body best, the gentlemen of the republican

party. >> immigrant rights are not civil rights? >> no, i think civil rights are for blacks. >> do you feel like you have been utilized enough? >> i do. absolutely. >> you're going to have to answer some questions. >> when is the election? >> who is the president right now? >> can women vote? >> really gives you a sense of what it must have been like to grow up in mitt romney's house. >> i don't know how it is that sheldon aidleson got the front row. >> he declared himself unquau filed to be president of the united states. >> if i had paid more than were legally due, i don't think i would be qualified to be president. >> this is nuts. >> american people would like to hear some specifics. >> we've got specifics coming out of our eyeballs. >> if governor romney is suggesting we should start another war, he should say so. >> he's trying to fool people into thinking that i think things i don't. >> are any of you voting for mitt romney? 40 republicans and the rest godless liberal homosexuals. >> what's your big idea?

>> freedom. >> people work hard in this country, they can get ahead. >> no question in my mind, we're going to win. >> let's get right to our panel. in new york, i'm joined by steve kornacki, co-host of "the cycle" jonathan capeht and ari melba. can mitt romney turn around a lifetime of flip-flopping, six years of lackluster campaigning in a 90-minute televised debate with the president? >> he almost has to. this is such a fascinating election to me because it's simultaneously one-sided and close. if you look at the real clear politics average of all the polls, it's basically a three or four-point lead in obama's favor. it's not huge, but it's a stubborn and persistent three or four points. it's been that way the entire race and it seemed basically immovable from either side. stuck at that three to four-point level. the hope that romney can take coming into this debate is john kerry in 2004 was being written

off sort of like romney was. kerry was perceived to do much better than bush in the debate. closed the gap substantially. there were a lot of soft democratic vote worries strayed from his side. his debate performance brought them back into the fold. that's not the case now. it's more of a mishmash of democrats and republicans and casual voters. he needs something big that's going to move that three, four points. if it's not the debate, i don't know what else it is. >> jonathan, in your column today you suggest democrats may be getting a little overconfident going into the debates. you say romney sounded reasonable on "60 minutes." he didn't sound like the guy who insulted half the country. that's hardly great expectations. that's more like "bleak house." isn't it? >> i said he trashed half the country. that's very important. he trashed half the country. >> your use of that colloquialism. >> mitt romney sounded reasonable. that's not to say he was correct

or to say his policy prescriptions are the right ones for the country. but in a seated interview being asked direct questions where he's able to talk to one person and give an answer, just performancewise, mitt romney did very, very well. when we go into thinks debates where he'll be asked questions by i believe the first moderator is jim lehrer. he will be asked questions, and the format i think might inure to his benefit. the other part of the equation though, martin, is how well the president does or doesn't do. the narrative is the president isn't a very good debater. you hear it here in the washington bubble all the time and you talk to obama folks privately, and they acknowledge that. but, you know, the president is a very competitive person, and so it will be interesting to see if the mitt romney on "60 minutes" shows up in denver on october 3rd and if the barack obama that people know to be a very strong at least

presidentially will be a strong debater. >> jonathan, i need to apologize to our viewers. we've had some gremlins all day. >> you can wear tha-- hear that too? >> a wood chipper right behind you. one of the criticisms of mitt romney lately has been he spent so much time focused on fund-raising as opposed to campaigning. when he was asked a question about this, this is what he said. take a listen. >> to be competitive it means a lot more fund-raising than i think i would like. i'd far rather be spending my time out on the key swing states campaigning door-to-door if necessary but in rallies and various meetings, but fund-raising is a part of politics when your opponent decides not to live by the federal spending limits. >> there he is blaming the president. >> it's a great line for mitt romney because, like so many others, it's highly misleading and takes time to unpack. of course, if he wants to have public funding of presidential races, he could support the fair

elections now act from senator durbin. there are bills here he does not support. he hasn't put his money where his mouth is literally. it's true candidates in both parties going back to george w. bush have been opting out of the limits. i happen to support them. the other point to jonathan capehart is i do think the president is a better president than a debater. if you go back to the early primary debates, especially when there were many candidates in the ring, he didn't stand out. he never had errors either. that's the thing about barack obama. it was almost boring or flat and the washington media that's looking for a big moment never got one with him. but when you're up four points, as steve said, you don't need a big moment. >> jonathan, if mr. romney is going it turn things around, then he'll have to do it by himself. just today you've got newt gingrich, the serial adulterer out there with todd akin, the man who leth ma advertised rape.

these men are not really doing mitt romney much in the way of favors, are they? >> depends on who their audience is. this is going to be a base election. meaning mitt romney has to excite his base to ensure they come out. >> he's been exciting his base for six years. how much longer does he have to go on and try to do this? >> he's got to do it until the voting -- until the polls are closed across the country. and so -- but also remember donald trump and sheldon aidleson are not exactly for mitt romney. they're against barack obama. so whatever they have to say, you know, it's about their goals to get rid of the president. mitt romney is but a secondary thought, but, you know, if it excites the base to come out to vote against the president, then that works to romney's benefit. >> i put it a little differently. i think a lot of the folks on the right are treating this as a referendum election where you can talk about unemployment and attack barack obama, and that is a model that can work against incumbents during bad economic

times. the problem for them is that mitt romney is starting to drop below the threshold of a credible challenger. when that happens in politics, you have to go back to explaining why is this person credible. are they up for the job, and that's what you see. it's something you've mentioned before and the net negative ratings for this nominee, the worst since any candidate since '88 when pew was taking those numbers. >> 50% unfavorable. >> exactly. when you get into that territory, you can't just bang on a referendum attack. you have to figure out how to tell people that mitt romney is a credible challenger. i don't think they're clearing that bar this month. >> here is the one question when you talk about these debates. i think back to mitt romney's first debate in politics against ted kennedy in 1994. this was the ted kennedy just a couple years removed from his n nephew and the rape trial. the expectations in massachusetts were so low for ted kennedy and here is this young, fresh-faced reformer who is going to stick it to ted

kennedy with his political career on the line. he showed up, he was competent that night. he was a solid debater. i think he probably beat mitt romney on points. because the expectations were so low, that was seen as a definitive triumph for ted kennedy. if the expectations are this low for mitt romney, there's a chance a competent performance comes across as something more. >> exactly. thank you all. next, the republican party unhinged. stay with us. >> if republicans are so far away from latinos, they're going to lose not only this election, they might lose the white house for a generation. >> for the future. >> that's why the democrats are dropping the blocks and moving on to the hispanics because they're a larger group.

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self-tanner to dye his face brown before addressing a town hall on spanish language tv. speculation he looks like my dad's recliner. >> "saturday night live" there making light of mr. mitt romney's somewhat darkened appearance, but it wasn't just his complexion that captured attention at the univision town hall, it was also the size and sound of the audience's reaction. >> welcome. >> thank you. >> turns out they couldn't find enough republican students at the university of miami, so instead of allowing any student into the event, romney threatened to cancel unless his campaign was allowed to bus in some supporters to fill the empty seats. and that wasn't their only demand. joining us now are maria teresa kumar, an msnbc contributor, and

liliana gill. the co-moderator said romney's actions and i'm quoting her, were disrespectful. she also said he demanded retaping the opening of the show because he didn't like the introduction. it sounds as if unless mitt romney is given the fox news network treatment, he just throws all the toys out of his progra pram. >> it sounds like he doesn't nou how to campaign and bring reporters into his camp. the fact she said it was disrespectful, that speaks volumes to the latino community, not only were they disrespecting her but the forum and his ability to talk to the latino community. >> not such a great win for him. >> not at all. >> the author ann coulter made some interesting remarks. >> we don't owe the homeless. we don't owe feminists. we don't owe women who are

desirous of having abortions or gays who want to get married to one another. that's what civil rights has become for much of the left. >> they're not civil rights? immigrant rights are not civil rights? >> no, i think civil rights are for blacks. >> immigrant rights are not civil rights. >> apparently not, and i guess not all people are, you know -- can enjoy the personal liberty that the 13th and 14th amendment in this country out to give them regardless of race and ethnicity and gender and personal preference. she's just showing us how her personal bias is getting in the way of the obvious good decision making that anyone looking at the emerging majority minority in this country ought to be paying attention to. so it was ignorant and she looks ignorant and unfortunately, once again, it's another dent in the party that is trying or claiming to say that they want to outreach, you know, latinos. >> do you think that ann coulter represents the views of mitt romney in any event?

>> first, i don't, to be fair. but i think he hasn't been able to come clean when it comes to his whole notion of what immigration should be. he still hasn't said he doesn't believe in self-deportation. he still believes when he talks about the dream act, he believe only young people serving in the military, and when you start talking about immigrant rights, you're talking about who in america is not an immigrant, and when you're talking about that you don't believe in fundamental belief of what our bedstone of america is, then you're basically un-american, ann coulter. >> indeed. she says, you know, we're not ones who are desirous of having abortions or gays who want to get married to one another. that's what civil rights has become for much of the left. they dropped the blacks in five minutes and george stephanopoulos says immigrant rights are not civil rights in she says, no, i think civil rights are for blacks. >> the reality there is it's not -- the democrats haven't dropped blacks, but republicans have dropped blacks and latinos and the realization that there's a changing face of america that's driving growth, that impacts the economy, and that is

going to make a significant difference in who makes it to the white house. >> i think what's happen something ann coulter and mitt romney have basically gone all the way to the right. that even republicans themselves may not be identifying with their own party. so they're turning off potential voters that are moderate republicans and also independents, and that's the worst thing for their party. you can say they're right now becoming the sunsetting party because they're going so extreme to the right. >> indeed. thank you both. next, the president on mitt romney's call to war. stay with us. ♪

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the president has arrived in new york where he and the first lady will host a reception for visiting heads of state this evening before he addresses the united nations general assembly tomorrow. during an interview for "60 minutes" the president defended his record on foreign policy and invited mitt romney to spell out his intentions with regard to iran. >> i've executed on my foreign

policy and it's one that the american people largely agree with. so, you know, if governor romney is suggesting that we should start another war, he should say so. >> nbc's kristin welker joins us live from the white house. kristin, surprised you're not following the president here to new york. contrary to some, the president is, in fact, taking time to meet foreign leaders this evening. do you expect him to make any substantive comments tomorrow specifically about the middle east and perhaps syria in particular? >> reporter: well, martin, good afternoon. i do expect him to make some pretty serious and substantive comments about the middle east, specifically syria, for a couple of reasons. in part because those are really the top issues that leaders at the u.n. general assembly are grappling with this week. as you pointed out, this is an election year. he will be speaking on the heels of sort of repeated criticism from mitt romney that he hasn't been tough enough, that his

foreign policy hasn't been tough enough. and in addition to all of that, martin, president obama sort of breaking with tradition this year. he's not meeting with world leaders on the sidelines. he's getting criticized for that to some extent by some of his critics who say he's doing this to try to avoid any controversy because this is an election year. the white house has been pushing back against that criticism saying, look, president obama meets with these world leaders and is in constant contact with them all of the time, but despite all of that, there is a lot riding on this speech tomorrow, martin, so i think you're going to hear him get specific about syria. he will reiterate his calls for president bashar al assad to step down. he will reiterate pressuring the international community to join western nations in that effort. he will, of course, have tough words for iran urging iran to get in line with international law, and for the middle east as well he will, we are told by white house press secretary jay carney, talk about the fact that the united states stands with democratic movements but cond n

condemns any violence like the type of violence we have seen in the past few weeks. >> nbc's kristin welker. thank you so much, kristin. and we'll be right back to "clear the air." [ male announcer ] if you believe the mayan calendar, on december 21st polar shifts will reverse the earth's gravitational pull and hurtle us all into space. which would render retirement planning unnecessary.

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well, mr. ryan and mrs. ryan had somehow managed not to report an additional $61,122 in their original submission. this means that their original tax filing made well before mr. romney shot to fame as the vice president pick had denied the federal government almost $20,000 in revenue. so unlike mitt romney who chose to overpay the irs so that he could claim an income tax rate of 14%, mr. ryan actually underpaid his taxes. it's tough to keep up with these two. now, we're happy to report that mr. and mrs. ryan have made good on the underpayment and they also paid a penalty for their miscalculation. but isn't there something mall ode russ about a man who claims to be the model of fiscal discipline and personal integrity but somehow manages to overlook almost 20% of his income? and when you add this to other revelations like his